A home at 9921 W. Vassar Way in Lakewood was damaged by fire early Friday Sept. 9, 2016.

West Metro firefighters rescued a 5-year-old girl who had burrowed herself into her bedroom closet after a fire broke out in a Lakewood home early Friday, according to firefighters.

The girl and her father were taken to a hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation, said Tom Richards, spokesman for West Metro Fire District.

“This is why you pay your taxes for firefighters,” Richards said. “These guys will get life-saving medals. It was incredible work.”

A fire broke out just after midnight Thursday near the back deck at 9921 W. Vassar Way. A fire alarm had alerted the family.

An emergency call came in at 12:27 a.m., Richards said.

While rushing to the home, Lt. Richard Klein spoke with his commander, volunteering two of his men to search inside the home for a girl who was trapped upstairs in the home.

Firefighters David Dame and Seth Major quickly “bunked up,” by putting on breathing masks and gear while riding in Tower 8 Fire Truck, Klein said. As they approached the house, they could see it was engulfed in flames, he said. Flames had climbed up the back of the house, had broken through the girl’s bedroom window and were rolling across the ceiling toward the girl’s closet.

“The whole back of the house from end to end and from top to bottom was on fire,” Klein said.

A woman and a boy had safely fled the fire. The girl’s father was kneeling in the front yard, coughing and choking after trying repeatedly to climb the stairs to get to his daughter. The inside of the home was clogged with smoke.

When the ladder truck came to a stop, Dame and Major leapt off the truck and immediately ran through the front door and up the stairs. The only way they could see inside the home was with thermal-imaging cameras. Within seconds, they found the girl, who had hidden deep within her closet, Klein said.

She was crying and afraid and didn’t want to leave the closet, Klein said. Dame and Major picked her up. As they carried her down the stairs, Klein met them and helped carry the child outside.

From the time the firetruck arrived at the house, Dame and Major needed less than 40 seconds to get the girl out of the home. She did not suffer any burns and was treated at a hospital for smoke inhalation.

“I’m so proud of them. Not to be overly dramatic, but five or 10 seconds can make all the difference,” Klein said. “They were ecstatic.”

The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.

There was a barbecue grill and smoker on the back deck, but they had not been used Thursday night.

Kirk Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz., and Twin Falls, Idaho, and The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.

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